Thursday, April 26, 2012

Ellison, Marcuse, and the Consciousness of Servitude

Invisible Man and One-Dimensional
Man have a clear relationship in that they deal with the issues of
social-domination and the inability to recognize it. Both Ellison and
Marcuse are contending with this topic in slightly different ways.
Marcuse is mainly concerned with the overall power structure that is
dominated by a select, privileged few, a power structure that perpetuates the
destruction of multidimensional thought. Ellison, on the other hand,
focuses his lens a little more closely on the factors that racial tensions
bring into this power structure. In this
essay, it is my objective to argue for a clear relationship between the power
structures present in both Marcuse and Ellison.
Specifically, I will investigate how Marcuse’s “consciousness of
servitude” is related to the narrator’s role as well as other characters in Invisible
Man.

Marcuse
asserts, “All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the
emergence of this consciousness is always hampered by the predominance of needs
and satisfactions which, to a great extent, have become the individual’s own”
(Marcuse, 7). Here, Marcuse is saying
that for true freedom to occur, everyone must first realize that they are in
fact not free. Only then can people
confront the status quo with alternatives, instigating a movement towards
liberation. However, this raises a
problem: people are generally too preoccupied with attaining basic needs, or
are too concerned with achieving success to realize that they are bound to the
ultimate form of servitude. As Box
explains, Marcuse goes on to construct “a broader analysis of society that
finds people distracted by sports, fun, and technology and pursuing the “false
needs” generated by advertisements for consumer goods, and settling into the
Happy Consciousness that no longer wonders whether there are alternatives to
the status quo” (Box, 172). Due
to this fact, ultimate liberation may never present itself as a feasible goal. Box
elaborates, “over time, an outline emerges of a society in which business and
government cooperate to stifle knowledge of alternatives, prevent changes in
the status quo, and preserve the advantages enjoyed by a few. Marcuse called this
condition “containment”” (Box, 173). The
power structure’s containment of alternatives, coupled with the preservation of
the status quo, may deem the Marcuse’s consciousness of servitude unattainable.

Marcuse’s
idea of attaining the consciousness of servitude can be related to The
Invisible Man on several
occasions throughout the novel. However, the occasion that I would like to
first investigate appears in Chapter 1, where the narrator’s grandfather speaks
his dying words, “I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a
traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my
gun back in the Reconstruction” (Ellison, 16). The preceding quote from the
narrator’s grandfather troubled his family greatly. What exactly did he
mean by this statement? I believe that the grandfather meant that
he regretted living a humble life in such a racist environment. In living
this meek life, he felt that he was a traitor to his family and his race.
The grandfather proceeded to tell his family to protect themselves by remaining
compliant to the white power structure, but not to internally accept this
role. If they do not accept this role, they will not be traitors like
him. I also believe that the grandfather
felt that his family could somehow overcome the current power structure by
staying in the compliant character.
Jarenski explains, “the narrator's grandfather uses invisibility as an
accommodationist tactic. He hopes on the one hand to disappear beneath a veil
of yeses and grins so that he can live outside of the disciplinary gaze, and
wishes on the other hand that his meek compliance will frustrate white power to
the point of explosive destruction, causing it to vomit and burst” (Jarenski). The grandfather’s dying words greatly trouble
the narrator, as we see in the following quote, “It became a constant puzzle
which lay unanswered in the back of my mind. And whenever things went well for
me I remembered my grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable. It was
as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself. And to make
it worse, everyone loved me for it. I was praised by the most lily-white men of
the town. I was considered an example of desirable conduct—just as my
grandfather had been” (Ellison, 16). In the early stages of the novel, the
narrator seems that his is accepting the role that the white
power structure wants him to play. He receives great praise for his
behavior and is even given a scholarship to a black college. The narrator
seems to be well on his way to living the humble life his grandfather lived and
regretted.

This
event directly relates to Marcuse’s consciousness of servitude. The
grandfather seemed to live a life that was presumably more concerned with basic
needs then actually fighting against a system of white domination.
Throughout his life, the grandfather did not possess, or just refused to
acknowledge, the consciousness of servitude that is referred to by Marcuse.
However, it seems that the grandfather eventually gained this consciousness of
servitude later in his life. The narrator seems unable to fully grasp the
consciousness of servitude early in the novel. He has been distracted by praise
and benefits given to him, such as the scholarship. He continues to be blind to
the fact that he is being taken advantage of in several instances like the
“battle royal” in which he was made to participate. All of the praise and
gifts act as a cover that the narrator cannot see through. This is very
similar to Marcuse’s comments on the consciousness of servitude and how it is
hampered by personal wants and needs. The narrator does not yet possess
this quality. All of the approval and acclaim prevent him from seeing his
servitude, and in effect prevents the thought of real liberation from entering
his mind.

Let
us investigate the battle royal event more closely as I believe it clearly
demonstrates the motives of the power structure and the inability of the
narrator to fully recognize how he is serving it. At this event, the narrator was under the
impression that he was only there to give a great speech in front of a white
audience; he felt very good about this opportunity to demonstrate his
abilities. However, the narrator is made
to participate in a battle royal with other black kids before giving the speech. The narrator makes his initial thoughts about
this very clear, “I suspected that fighting a battle royal might detract from
the dignity of my speech. In those pre-invisible days I visualized myself as a
potential Booker T. Washington” (Ellison, 18).
These thoughts show that the narrator does not yet recognize that by
participating in the battle royal, he is serving the white power structure of
the status quo by playing the role that the whites at the event want to see him
play, a barbaric black fighting for coins.
Instead of recognizing his role, all the narrator can think about is how
this battle royal might affect his upcoming speech. Jarenski explains, “the narrator looks to
find identity within the roles assigned to him by the white audience. His
primary concern is how they will perceive his dual role as a participant and a
speaker. At this point, the only way in which he is able to conceive of his
identity is from their perspective. The use of the word visualize, a highly
charged word throughout the novel, highlights this conception. Whites can only
"see" the narrator when he performs the roles expected of black men,
as in this case when he can only give his speech after he has been dehumanized
by the battle. Similarly, he can only visualize himself within the context of a
black role that has already been officially recognized, specifically that of
Booker T. Washington” (Jarenski). The
narrator’s concerns about the battle royal do no change much throughout the
event. As the battle intensifies, the
narrator explains, “The harder we fought the more threatening the men became. And yet, I had begun to worry about my speech
again. How would it go? Would they recognize my ability? What would they give me?” (Ellison, 24). Once again, we see that the narrator’s main
concern is with how the battle royal will affect his speech instead of being
concerned with how he is being used. The
narrator is more concerned with whether or not his ability will be recognized
and what he will be given as an award.
As he makes his speech, the white audience jeers him when he mentions
equality. The narrator insists that he
said something else and finishes his speech.
Later the narrator is presented with a college scholarship, cementing
that everything he went through was worth it.
The narrator fails to see through this gift as a way of disguising his
servitude, and as maintaining the status quo by showing the narrator that
playing a certain role will get people like him somewhere in life. Any alternative thoughts that the narrator
may have are contained by praise and gifts.
This prevents the narrator from attaining the consciousness of servitude
at this point of the novel.

“This
is the pure form of servitude: to exist as an instrument, as a thing . . . the
organizers and administrators themselves become increasingly dependent on the
machinery which they organize and administer. And this mutual dependence is no
longer the dialectical relationship between Master and Servant, which has been
broken in the struggle for mutual recognition, but rather a vicious circle
which encloses both the Master and the Servant” (Marcuse, 33).

This
quote from Marcuse also connects to Ellison. This quote is asserting that even
the so-called masters of the power structure in place fall victim to it. They
are bound to it and live their lives perpetuating it. The masters constantly
seek more power while at the same time defend against the loss of power. Box states, “Although people might be
vaguely aware of the absence of alternatives, they are fearful of endangering
their current position” (Box, 175). An
instance where this is clearly demonstrated in Invisible Man is when Bledsoe is admonishing the
narrator. The following quote is from Bledsoe, “This is a power set-up,
son, and I’m at the controls. You think about that. When you buck against
me, you’re bucking against power, rich white folks power, the nation’s
power—which means government power! (Ellison, 142). This quote illustrates
Bledsoe’s view of his position at the college. He sees himself as holding
authority over everyone at the college, and he seems pleased by this.
Even though his power in a way perpetuates the system of white control, Bledsoe
loves his position. However, he seems to be very nervous and self-conscious
about his power; he is very afraid that he might somehow be removed from his
position of authority. Bledsoe’s role in this connects to Marcuse’s
comments on the Master and the Servant. Even though Bledsoe holds power
over the narrator, there is no classic master-servant relationship. This
is because both Bledsoe and the narrator are being controlled
by the system dominated by whites. Bledsoe is so concerned with keeping
his power that he fails to see that he too is being controlled. Bledsoe
is blind to how he is being manipulated into perpetuating the current system in
place. He does this by being more concerned with keeping influential
whites happy and giving them what they want to see, than with helping his race
and college community progress against the system of domination.

Towards
the end of the novel, I believe the narrator clearly demonstrates that he has
attained Marcuse’s consciousness of servitude to some degree. This is seen when the narrator has sexual
encounters with white women. “The narrator has two sexual encounters with white
women that confirm and intensify his sense of himself as the abject. The first
of these encounters happens in the context of one of the narrator's speeches
for the Brotherhood, a political organization that pays the narrator to deliver
speeches and organize community action, and, in the process, assigns him a commodified
identity. The speeches represent moments of visibility for the narrator, and
they are supposed to be moments of growing subjectivity. However, his sexual
encounters suggest continued objectification” (Jarenski). During these encounters, the narrator comes
to realize that the white women see him only as a primitive sexual being for their
rape fantasies. While the narrator seems
a bit unsure about this role in the first encounter, he fully recognizes it in the
second encounter with a woman named Sybil.
When she asks him to rape her, the narrator plays along with the role
saying, “I rapes real good when I'm drunk” (Ellison, 521). I believe this is the narrator’s way of
following his grandfather’s advice by giving the white woman what she expects
to see from him.

The narrator has also discovered a new
identity for himself, one of invisibility.
“Sybil's desire to believe she has been raped coincides with his
realization that, to her, he is just another black brute. This realization
awakens a new sense of reality in the narrator and he declares, "I'm
invisible”” (Jarenski). He does not go
through with the sex act, as he feels sorry for her. He cannot bring himself to dominate the woman
and make her powerless and invisible like he has been to whites. He instead decides to help the drunken Sybil
to a taxi.

The
sexual encounters with the white women, coupled with the realization that the
Brotherhood was merely using him for their own means, leads the narrator to
finally become conscious of his role of servitude to the white power
structure. Now that he recognizes this
role, he creates a new identity for himself; he now considers himself invisible. At the end of the novel, we see the narrator
still living in the secluded basement from the prologue. The narrator still remains unnoticed by the
outside world. He hints that he may
emerge from this basement by stating, “I’ve overstayed my hibernation, since
there’s a possibility that even an invisible man has a socially responsible
role to play” (Ellison, 581). When the
narrator emerges, will he follow his grandfather’s advice to continue to yes
and grin em’ to death? On the other hand, will the narrator find some other way
to fight to white power structure? Will
he choose to do anything at all? Unfortunately, we will never know the answers
to these questions.

In
conclusion, there is a clear relationship between Marcuse’s consciousness of
servitude and the events that take place in Invisible
Man. The narrator goes through a
clear transformation concerning this attribute.
Early on, the narrator is blind to his servitude; he is only concerned
with praise and advancement. Throughout
the rest of the novel, the narrator becomes more and more aware of his role of
servitude. His realization that the
Brotherhood was using him, along with the realization that the white women he
had sexual encounters with only saw him as a rape fantasy object, allowed the
narrator to gain the consciousness of servitude that Marcuse refers to. This resulted in the narrator forming a new
invisible identity for himself. In
addition, other characters such as Bledsoe reflect Marcuse’s view on servitude
and the power structure at hand.